J.K Rowling’s New Book Plus 25 More Stories of British Provincial Life

She’s back. J.K. Rowling’s new novel, The Casual Vacancy, has finally been published but Harry Potter and Hogwarts are nowhere to be seen. Rowling’s first novel for adults takes on the intricacies of English provincial life.

Pagford is the quintessential English small town with a cobbled market square and historic abbey, but life is anything but peaceful behind the hanging baskets and manicured lawns. An empty seat appears on the town council when Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly and the subsequent election sparks conflict and turmoil (although there probably isn’t a full-scale battle involving deadly spells). Rowling has promised her devoted readers a novel of black comedy. Will she deliver without the magic of wizardry?

English provincial life has been a rich theme for writers over the centuries and Rowling comes from just such a background, having been born in Yate in Gloucestershire and growing up in the villages of Winterbourne and Tutshill.

Thomas Hardy is probably the finest purveyor of English provincial strife (although Anthony Trollope fans may disagree) but Dorset’s famous son doesn’t offer many laughs. Tom Sharpe does on the other hand – his 1975 novel, Blott on the Landscape, remains an excellent satire on Englishness away from the big city.

Flora Thompson’s Lark Rise to Candleford is another excellent read. The book has enjoyed a revival in interest since the BBC TV adaptation in 2008. It was originally a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels set in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

Although more rural than small-town, Cold Comfort Farm, published in 1932, is a parody of the likes of Hardy and should be on everyone’s reading list.

In many of these books, we see small places having big battles with ample helpings of the black comedy that comes so easy to British writers. Others writers take a more subtle approach and look for the flaws of ordinary people.